The Great Eastern Pingo Trail is a flat 8-mile circular walk near the villages of Thompson and Stow Bedon. Link

Pingos are formed in permafrost environments. Those in this area date from the end of the last ice age (9,000 years ago) and are some of the best-preserved in the country. When subsurface water freezes, it creates a lens of ice, raising the soil in a dome shape. Soil is washed off the top of this formation and accumulates around the base; when the ice eventually melts, the pingo collapses and a shallow crater is left. Link

The Great Eastern part of the trail's name comes from its use of a section of trackbed of the former Thetford-Watton line, built by the Thetford and Watton Railway Company in 1869 and closed under the Beeching cuts in 1964. The car park for the trail is on the site of Stow Bedon station. Some information on this branch can be found at Link

The walk passes through a variety of habitats including commons at Stow Bedon and Thompson Link , heaths at Stow/Breckles and Hockham, a basin mire at Cranberry Rough Link , the artificial Thompson Water (1845), and carr woodland. Part of it runs along the Peddars Way Link , and beside the Stanford military training area Link .